Authors: Helen Nielsen
From this point on Stephanos would drive with one eye cocked on the rear-view mirror, as if expecting someone to overtake them. A few kilometres out of town he noticed a large truck, about sixty yards behind. The truck honked once, but made no attempt to pick up speed and pass. As the Fiat gained speed the truck maintained the distance between them. Noticing Brad’s concern, Stephanos said:
“Don’t worry about the truck. I talked to the driver in Larissa. He’s going to Kastoria, too.”
“Why should I be worried?” Brad asked.
This time Stephanos didn’t explain. Driving with one hand on the wheel, he dug the cheese and the roll out of his pocket and began to eat as he drove. After a while, he said: “Sometimes it’s good to have someone following, in case of trouble with the car.”
“Do you expect trouble?”
“One always expects trouble in life. If not, it comes anyway. Besides, we have left the motorway behind us now. We will be gaining altitude most of the way. Mr. Smith, do you really expect to find Harry Avery alive?”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s possible also that he’s dead in the wreckage. What will you do then?”
Brad caught himself in time to avoid explaining that Harry wasn’t in the wreckage. It was given to him as confidential information. “Then I will have made a long trip for nothing,” he said, “but it’s still better than sweating out the time in a hotel room.”
“I think it would be better to sweat out the time with Rhona Avery.”
“Nobody gets close to Rhona Avery. David Draper sees to that!”
“Who is David Draper?”
“Avery’s secretary. And aren’t you getting a little inquisitive for a driver, Stephanos? Why I go to Kastoria is my business, and what I do when I get there is my business!”
“That’s true,” Stephanos admitted. “Still, it’s not often that I am so close to a rich man—”
“I’m not rich!”
“But you intend to be, and you know rich people. I don’t and so I’m curious. Are they happy, Mr. Smith?”
“I don’t think they have time to think about it,” Brad said.
Stephanos sighed. “Then it is the same with everyone.”
Stephanos was right. The road did begin to climb upwards, as the hills rolled into mountains and the air grew cooler. Once they saw a small plane overhead that seemed to follow the road for a time before turning northward, but there was little traffic on the road itself. At no time did they lose sight of the truck following, at the measured distance, behind them. When, later in the afternoon, they left the main highway for a secondary road, Stephanos let out a shout:
“The last leg of the journey, Mr. Smith. We’ll make Kastoria before dinner!”
Brad glanced at the rear-view mirror. The truck still followed. Another twenty minutes passed and the road crossed a river, that now began roughly to parallel the artery.
“At Kastoria I leave you,” Stephanos said.
“Leave me? I hired a driver for a round trip!”
“Because you didn’t know the way. Now you know. I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but that is the way it must be—”
Stephanos was interrupted by a loud, incessant honking from the truck behind them. Instantly, he tensed at the steering wheel.
“What’s the matter with that fellow, is his horn stuck?” Brad shouted over the din.
“Hang on,” Stephanos yelled back. “We have to manoeuvre now.”
The small car shot forward, as he stomped on the accelerator. As the distance separating them from the truck increased, the volume of the honking decreased but didn’t stop. Yards ahead, almost hidden by the bland colouring of soil and rock, a narrow dirt road veered off from the wider road. Without slackening speed, Stephanos spun the steering wheel and bounced on to the unpaved surface. A cloud of dust rose up behind them and followed for the several kilometres they drove, before Stephanos found room in a clump of brush to park and conceal the small car. No sooner was the ignition turned off, than he leaped out of the front seat and raced back to open the boot. Brad extricated himself as best he could, and followed. The dust cloud was already settling. The road behind was starkly empty. He turned to face Stephanos, just in time to see him pull a knapsack from his back and swing it up on to his shoulders. He then withdrew a cartridge belt, tossed it about his neck like a scarf, took out an automatic rifle and slammed the boot shut.
Brad’s facially registered shock didn’t disturb him. “Come on,” he said, “we can’t stay here. The dust might have been seen, when we turned off the main road.”
“Seen by whom?” Brad demanded.
“The police. The truck driver was to honk like that, if an official looking car came up behind him, and to keep honking and block the road so it couldn’t pass until I found cover. We go back to the river now. Hurry—”
There was something very persuasive about the way Stephanos held the rifle. Together they began to make their way through the low brush that led to the river, Stephanos parting the more stubborn growth with the barrel of his rifle. “Don’t worry,” he said brightly, “we’re only about forty-five kilometres from Kastoria.”
“Do you expect me to walk that far?”
“Of course not.” Stephanos stopped and held up a hand for silence. “Listen,” he said. “The road is just ahead.”
They spied the road simultaneously. The first sound was that of the big black Mercedes, which had finally overtaken the truck and was accelerating, to make up for lost time. As it passed, the labouring motor of the large truck approached in the distance.
“Now we run!” Stephanos cried. “Follow me. There’s another bridge up ahead.”
The truck was waiting when they reached the bridge. It had crossed over and pulled off on the shoulder. The driver had put up the hood and was peering at the motor. He looked back and saw them scrambling up the river bank and beckoned them to come on. He shouted something to Stephanos in Greek and slammed down the hood of the truck.
“We’re to get in the back with the oil barrels,” Stephanos said. “Here, I’ll give you a boost.”
“I can make it,” Brad answered.
He ran forward and clambered up over the tail gate. Stephanos tossed in the rifle and cartridge belt and then, aided by a hand from Brad, climbed up into the truck even as it began to move forward. Inside the cab, the truck driver began to sing in a roaring baritone and Stephanos, dropping the knapsack to the floor of the truck, fell back against the oil drums and laughed.
“So I return the favour, Mr. Smith,” he said. “You give Katerina a telephone number to call if she’s in trouble. I save you from being questioned by Captain Koumaris.”
“Why would he want to question me?” Brad asked.
“Because you ride with a dangerous revolutionary. Because he is so afraid that he looks in the mirror and sees a ghost. He is a dead man already. He has hurt too many people to get out of this mess alive. Now, relax if you can, Mr. Smith. There is no dusk in the mountains. The night comes quickly. Soon we are in Kastoria and I start learning to forget about Athens.”
“What will you do?”
“What better men than myself have done—hide. Hide in the hills, in the mountains. Wait. Some have been waiting for a decade. Think of us some time when you are enjoying your swimming pool in California. Remember what the tourist posters say: ‘You were born in Greece.’ Your mind, your soul, the very word: ‘democracy’. Remember sometime what has happened to your homeland.”
Stephanos was silent the rest of the way. Only when the truck rumbled through the outskirts of the city, did he bestir himself and rap at the driver’s window. Sharp, commanding words were given in Greek. The driver nodded and turned off the main road. They were skirting the city, following the edge of the lake where the last departing glow of day mingled with the yellow lights of the night. Then the truck stopped. Stephanos tossed out the knapsack and cartridge belt. Holding the rifle high over his head, he leaped to the ground. Brad leaped out beside him and the truck moved on and was swallowed by shadows.
Stephanos slung the cartridge belt over one shoulder and carried the pack by the straps. “I know a place where we can go now,” he said. “A small taverna where artists go. I will find someone to take you to the centre of town where you can get a hotel. You’ve forgotten your coat in the Fiat.”
“I’m not cold,” Brad said.
They had entered a narrow street bounded by the houses of the poor. There was the smell of cooking and the soft lights of simple houses. There were sounds of laughter and of wayward children being called to supper. A few steps ahead, the street opened on a small square where the lights of the taverna and a few shops beckoned them on. Stephanos stopped and scanned the area. There were dark spots—trees, shadows, the dark faces of unlighted shops. He listened and then moved forward across the square. Brad hesitated. Some old instinct of the jungle fighter, perhaps. Some reluctance to quit the safety of shadow. In that instant Stephanos took three or four steps forward and then, without warning, was caught in a double blaze of light. Two cars—Brad saw only the black Mercedes—moved towards him. Stephanos froze like a dancer in some grotesque ballet, then spun about and hurled the knapsack and rifle at Brad’s feet.
“Find Petros!” he shouted. “Petros with one eye!”
By this time the cars had stopped and uniformed men were racing towards him. Brad grasped the straps of the pack with one hand and scooped up the rifle with the other. There was no thought of helping Stephanos now. He saw a club swing and heard the sickening sound of splintering bones, as Stephanos fell to the ground.
Brad turned and ran back into the shelter of darkness.
“FIND PETROS! PETROS with one eye.”
Stephanos’ words were a command, and in this strange city, in the darkness, how was he to find this man? The rifle and knapsack were an added hindrance—one didn’t walk about the streets carrying an automatic rifle, without attracting attention. He propped the gun against the sheltering wall and directed his attention to the pack. It was possible that Stephanos might have something among his possessions that would give a clue to the whereabouts of Petros. He pulled out a few items of clothing: sweaters, socks, a shaving kit and then found a large canvas bag, of the type used by merchants to take cash receipts to the bank. It was tightly packed. He opened it and took out a package of bank notes, still held together by a bank wrapper. The notes were new and crisp to the touch. He found his cigarette lighter and flicked it on. What he was holding was a packet of Deutschmarks. He flicked through the pack: twenty notes in the denomination of one thousand Deutschmarks each. He checked the full contents of the bag. There were nineteen more packs. He was carrying one hundred thousand dollars.
Brad switched off the lighter. There was enough light from the street to get the notes back into the canvas bag, and the bag back inside the knapsack. He left the other items, to lighten the load, and decided to keep the rifle for protection. This, then, was what he was to deliver to Petros and, since Stephanos was headed for the taverna on the square, it was logical to assume that it was a meeting place for his friends. If so, anyone waiting for Stephanos would have seen his capture. They would know where he was taken and soon, in all probability, would learn that he didn’t have the money on him. Where the money had come from and what purpose it was for, was something Brad couldn’t know. He did know that he would like to get rid of it. It would be difficult to explain away if he were picked up for questioning. Hadn’t Stephanos warned him about being caught with a criminal?
But no one throws away a hundred thousand dollars—especially when another man, with his last desperate cry, has asked that it be delivered to its destination. Bargains can be made with a hundred thousand dollars. If Petros was one of the rebels who had taken refuge in the mountains, as Stephanos seemed to be trying to do, he might be of help in locating Harry Avery. Brad picked up the lightened pack by the straps and held the rifle close to his side. The street was dimly lighted. He would make his way back towards the square. If it seemed deserted, he could try the taverna—the rifle could be chucked away at any time—or, perhaps, find a taxi that would take him to a hotel for the night. He could do nothing for Stephanos, but hope that the boy wouldn’t talk. He was strong, but Brad had seen stronger men broken.
Slowly and erratically (it was easy to become confused in the dark, winding streets) he found his way back to the square. This time he waited long enough to examine all the shadows and make certain no police cars were waiting. There was nothing to indicate that an act of violence had occurred. Music was coming from the taverna, perhaps to drive away the fears of the night, and a group of young boys was loitering under a street light, as boys loiter on street corners everywhere in the world. Nothing had happened: one looked the other way and survived. This was life.
A woman’s voice called from a window, somewhere beyond Brad’s vision. “Demetrios!” The rest of the words were Greek, but a mother’s call for her son to come home is universal. One of the boys on the street corner laughed and shoved a smaller boy away from the group. The call came again and Demetrios reluctantly sauntered across the street. Brad watched him approach. There was something unique about this boy. Perched on the back of his head was an old baseball cap, with the insignia of the Los Angeles Angels. Brad leaned the rifle against the wall and caught the boy’s arm as he came by.
“Where did you get that cap?” he demanded.
The boy was too startled to cry out. Brad dropped the knapsack and snatched the cap from his head.
“This cap!” he persisted. “Where did you get it?”
The boy seemed frozen to the spot. His eyes widened and Brad followed the direction of his gaze. He was staring at the automatic rifle. Brad grabbed the gun with his free hand and pointed it at the boy’s legs.
“Do you understand English?” he demanded.
The boy nodded vigorously.
“Did you see what happened here in this square tonight? Did you see the police take that young man?”
The nod was even more vigorous.
“If you don’t want them to do the same thing to you, you tell me where you got this cap. That’s an order!”
If the boy started to cry, it was all over. He looked longingly towards the row of windows from whence his mother’s call had come, but there was no reassurance. The tall man was still holding a rifle and his face was as ugly as the police. Desperately, the boy swung about and pointed off down the road beyond the taverna.
“Far,” he cried.
“How far?” Brad demanded.
The boy was groping for English words. “One—two kilometres,” he said.
“Who gave you the cap?”
“Nobody gave. I found on road.”
“That road?”
Brad gestured with the rifle and the boy nodded.
“What’s down that road?” he asked.
The terrible struggle with language began again. The boy scowled, twisted his body then blurted out: “Christos!”
“Christos? Do you mean a church?”
He had guessed right. The boy nodded again. Brad let go of his arm.
“All right,” he said. “Get along home. No, wait—” He shifted the rifle to the hand holding the cap and pulled a hundred drachmae note from his pocket. “This is for the cap,” he said.
The bargain seemed satisfactory, “Okay!” shouted the boy and ran off into the darkness.
It was Harry Avery’s cap. He might have had one or a dozen for all Brad knew, but a cap went with him everywhere he travelled. It was the thing that was Harry’s, as Rhona had reminded him last night in the hotel. It didn’t mean that he was alive, but it did mean that, even if he were dead, someone had found his body and it wasn’t far away.
Seated on an eminence overlooking the lake of the same name, the small city of Kastoria merged into the darkness. At his hotel, Brooks Martins completed a call to his wife from a lobby telephone. Lois was upset. There had been a call on the private wire late in the afternoon from a girl named Katerina Brisos. She claimed that an American, Bradley Smith, had given her the number with instructions to request protection, if she was threatened by the political police. The girl had been harassed on her afternoon tour—she was a tour guide, Lois explained. She was worried—not about herself, but about her brother and the man, Smith. They were bound for Kastoria. Had they arrived? Martins, whose pontoon-equipped plane was now moored on the lake, couldn’t answer. He promised to keep an eye out for Smith. He told Lois to authorize a watch on the Brisos girl’s apartment, if she called again.
“I don’t know her,” he said, “but I’ve met Smith. You remember, the man at the Hilton bar last night?”
“Of course,” Lois said. “
That
Smith. He seemed such a nice young man.”
“He seemed a determined young man,” Martins said. “If he gave a girl my number, he must have thought there was a good reason. I may be up here a few days. McKeough went out to look at the plane wreckage and I’m waiting for him now so we can have dinner. Nothing on Avery yet. Take care.”
They said their goodnights and Martins started into the dining room. On the way he was distracted by an unexpected arrival in the lobby. Through the glass doors, he saw a steel-grey Ferrari nose into the driveway and park at the kerb. A tall young woman, with patrician features, got out from behind the wheel and tossed the keys to the man seated beside her.
“The bags are in the boot,” she said. “Can you manage?”
The man got out of the car and Martins recognized him immediately. It was Avery’s lawyer: Peter Lange. But the woman wasn’t Mrs. Avery and he was grateful for that. Mrs. Avery seemed too emotional, when he last saw her, to risk having her underfoot here. The woman entered the lobby—a striking figure anywhere. Simply dressed in a close fitting, powder-blue suit, her silvered, cropped hair uncovered, her stride long and confident, she walked directly to the registration desk.
“I called from Athens,” she said. “I reserved two rooms. Pattison Blair and Peter Lange.”
Pattison Blair. Now Martins remembered. They had met once at a semi-official dinner party and he had had great difficulty reconciling the mad-cap Pattison Blair of the sensational press, with the quiet young lady, who spent most of the evening discussing finance with the better economic brains at the gathering. This was before Harry Avery had come to Athens, but even then there had been rumours of their romance. Avery was a man he had never met. Again the preconception confused him. Avery was fifteen years her senior, already married, neither handsome nor polished. But the inner needs of a man or a woman could never be understood.
Viva il mistero!
Martins smiled inwardly. Lois would have accused him of being a busybody. So he was. It was a part of his training to try to read people. By the time Peter Lange entered the lobby, followed by a porter carrying two small bags, Pattison Blair had registered and was ready to go to her room. Then she spied Martins watching her from across the lobby. Directly, as was her style, she came towards him, whipping off the owl-like driving glasses as she came.
“Mr. Brooks Martins,” she said. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“And I’m surprised to see you here,” Martins said.
“Have you found Harry?”
“No, not yet.”
“But the pilot, I understand, is dead.”
Lange joined them, waiting. Martins caught his eye.
“That was confidential information,” he said. “You seem to have been included.”
“I have a right to be included. Where is the pilot?”
“At the local mortuary.”
“Can I see his body?”
“That’s a strange request, Miss Blair. Were you acquainted?”
“No. We never met.”
“Then I think it unlikely that you can see him—especially tonight. Why did you ask?”
“I’m curious about how he died.”
“Quite suddenly, I’m told. In the crash. Broken neck.”
“Has there been an autopsy?”
“Not yet.”
“There must be one. Peter, you know Brooks Martins, of course.”
“We met yesterday,” Lange said.
“He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?”
The question embarrassed both Lange and Martins. She was aware of that. She smiled. “I’m not really being irrelevant,” she said. “That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? The black-white struggle, I mean. We all fear competition just a bit. It’s more comfortable to think one race is less beautiful or less intelligent or less sexually attractive. Now, don’t get uptight, Mr. Martins. Your marriage is notoriously successful—old-fashioned and quaint, but I like it. Peter, tell the man why we’re here.”
Peter Lange remained outwardly icy. “Miss Blair is interested in learning the cause of the crash,” he said.
“You sound too much like a lawyer,” Pattison interrupted. “Miss Blair, Mr. Martins, wants to know if there’s any chance that plane was sabotaged. Deliberately wrecked. You see, I have uncommonly bad luck with my men friends getting themselves killed, by one means or another. It’s become a kind of plague.”
“Do you suspect anyone?” Martins asked.
“That’s not important now. I just want to know what happened.”
“Then you want to know just what I want to know,” Martins answered. “At this point I know nothing except that there’s a mess of wreckage, in a canyon accessible only by mule. It hasn’t been examined by experts, so nothing factual is known.”
“Was Harry doing something for the government?” she asked.
“Do you think I would tell you if he was?” Martins said.
“Perhaps you just have,” she said. “I’m going up to my room now. If you have time, maybe we can have a drink together, later.”
“I won’t tell you anything.”
“No matter. You can fix it for me to see the pilot’s body. You can let me know if you learn anything about that plane. I’m a big girl now. Shall I tell you something? I think Harry’s dead.”
She left Martins to absorb this shock. She turned and marched towards the elevator and Peter Lange followed, like an obedient puppy who has recently and reluctantly been broken to the leash.
Brooks Martins was at the bar when McKeough returned.
“Do you know who’s here?” McKeough asked.
“Pattison Blair and Avery’s attorney, Lange,” Martins said.
McKeough looked surprised. “No kidding? Why?”
“Aren’t you up on the society gossip?”
“Hell, no. Why should I be? Waiter, wring out the driest Martini you’ve got. And never mind the explanation, Brooks. What I started to tell you is that Koumaris is here.”
“Now it’s my turn. Why?” Martins asked.
“He’s chasing a suspect in the bombing-robbery mess of last night. Worse than that, he’s caught him.”
Martins was drinking Scotch. He lowered his glass thoughtfully.
“Who?”
“Some young Greek fire-brand named Brisos. I just came from the local police station. Stopped off to see what I could learn, on my way back from questioning the men who brought in the pilot’s body. No chance of getting down to that wreckage until daylight, incidentally. They tell me it’s pretty well splattered all over the mountainside—that’s why it took so long to find it.”
“Brisos,” Martins repeated. “Where was he caught?”
“At some little taverna at the edge of town, where the rebels hang out. Ambushed, I hear.”
“Was he alone?”
“That’s what the captain is trying to find out. Knowing his methods, it shouldn’t take long.”
“But he was taken alone?”
“Yes, if it’s that important.”
“It’s that important. He didn’t come here alone. He came driving a car rented by Brad Smith.”
“Your American? The one you’re so sure of?”
Martins downed the rest of his Scotch in one swallow.
“The same. How many hotels are there in this place?”
“I don’t know. I can find out but not before dinner. Who do you want? Smith?”